hey guys Jennifer LeClaire here with you senior leader at The Awakening House of
Prayer founder of the ignite Network today we're going to do part two in our
church herte series I promised you we dive deeper into this topic this month
been a couple of weeks if you missed part one you can find that on my youtube
channel just type in my name type in youtube and we talked about church hurt
in terms of having to deal with it in the immediate but today don't want to
get a little more nitty and a little more gritty I want to talk about pastors
who are toxic pastors who bring Church hurt to your doorstep why because I
think a lot of the hurt in church comes from pastors it comes from abusive
leadership it comes from leaders who don't have a clue how to deal with
people you know they need to go read the books how to win friends and influence
people and get a clue because there's a lot of church are coming from from
apostles prophets evangelists pastors and teachers leaders and you know my
daughter was very very hurt in a church through a toxic pastor who played
favorites and we're going to get into all this we're gonna do two parts on
this today we're gonna do the first seven tomorrow or maybe the next day
maybe next week we're gonna do the second seven I'm actually traveling so
let me just dive into the first seven here now I'll tell you this came from
Tom Tom as rainer these general characteristics came from his blog but
i'm taking them and putting my spin on them with my experience and I don't want
to pray for you to get healed from this church herb so number one toxic pastors
rarely demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit rarely if anything they
demonstrate more often the fruit of the flesh you know I was with a an apostle
for a long time he rarely exhibited the fruit of the Spirit what is the fruit of
the Spirit peace patience joy long-suffering gentleness kindness
self-control this men of God if you can call him that was fleshly he was carnal
he did not exhibit the fruit of the Spirit you know your pastor your leader
should be demonstrating the the character of Christ now again no one's
perfect no one's going to get it right
all the time people blow it people get angry people have bad days people have
bad attitudes but when you see a consistency of a lack of spiritual fruit
in your leaders life that says to you there's a problem because when you're
not walking in the spirit you know the Bible says in Ephesians walk in the
spirit and you will not walk in the flesh you know we could turn that around
a little bit and say and say when you're walking in the flesh you know you're not
walking in the spirit obviously you can't walk in both the flesh and the
spirit at the same time so if you've got a pastor that's very fleshly you're
probably going to end up getting hurt sooner or later if you haven't already
number two toxic pastors seek a minimalist structure of accountability
if they could get away with it he says they would operate in total autocratic
fashion with a heavy top-down leadership here's the thing you know if you're
submitted to somebody and they're not submitted to anybody you're probably
going to have an issue where do you go if the sheep began to get abused where
do you go who do you talk to if it becomes cultish what happens
everybody needs to have somebody that can tell them no and you need to be able
to receive a correction a rebuke from somebody and somebody emailed me
recently saying well you don't think he can be rebuked by anybody and you're
warfare it's just your seeds that you're sowing it's not all warfare dear God
you know these kinds of accusations will come against godly leaders but when
you're submitted to somebody you can go to whoever you're submitted to your
apostles say look this accusation came to me I'm examining my heart do you see
this in me it always under a very abusive apostle very toxic apostle many
years ago who accused me of being in stable unsteady
now imagine at the time I was running three businesses working 80 hours a week
volunteering in a staff position 40 hours a week producing a TV show and a
magazine somehow he labeled me unstable and so I began to submit this to other
leaders outside the church who knew me who knew me well people not just leaders
from what mothers fathers associates in in the business world and they said this
is not you Whoopie because I was submitted I was able to if
I needed to receive the correction and grow if you're not accountable to
anybody if you're not submitted to anybody if nobody can tell you no then
you're a lone ranger you can have the biggest Network on the face of the earth
and you're still a lone ranger you must have people in your life who you're
accountable to if you're if your pastor doesn't have anybody accountable to him
or her if your apostle is not accountable to anybody you're on your
way to an authoritarian autocratic leadership style and you might get hurt
in other words what I'm trying to say is this autocratic leadership style paves
the way to control and where there's control there will be hurt and there
will be won't number three they expect behavior of others that they don't
expect of themselves in other words you have to do what I say but I don't have
to do it now that's being a hypocrite you have to be here when the church
doors open you have to be at all the prayer meetings you have to be here and
clean up afterward but I don't have to because after all I'm the apostle after
all I'm the pastor now I believe that you know that we should not make our
pastor sweep the floors and clean the parking lot however if your pastor has
an attitude that they are too good to do these things that's toxic and you will
end up getting hurt you'll end up getting abused you'll end up walking out
of that church never wanted to walk into another place again because of a
prideful pastor that's displaying toxic leadership in your life are you
following me already number four they see almost everyone else as inferior to
themselves you'll hear them criticizing other leaders while building themselves
up this is the biggest biggest biggest thing that I've seen with in terms of
toxic pastors you know I sit in a lot of green rooms with a lot of people and
there are some who just rip everybody apart behind the scenes and in front of
everybody they're their best friend but in the backstage they're saying oh you
hear that message that was so bad I don't know what they were thinking I
don't know why they dressed that way I don't know why they drive that car I
don't know why they think I mean when you hear people that are backbiting
other people who they're supposed to be friends with who they publicly celebrate
you need to be very careful because they're doing the same thing to you I'm
telling you they're doing the same thing to you and this again is a pride issue
this is a critical spirit if your pastor is from the pulpit always criticizing
people he's probably criticizing you behind the scenes
so don't Amen when your pastor blasts another pastor don't Amen when your
pastor comes against a very godly person now there's a difference between you
know calling out a sin and blasting a person okay so we don't want to take any
of this too far you know if they're calling out you know
somebody fell and they're saying we have to guard our hearts this man of God just
fell this woman to God just fell we need to old examine hearts that's the right
spirit that's a call for repentance but when they're saying oh I'm never going
to fall like this one fell that's a haughty attitude and pride comes before
the fall and if you're in a church with the leader that's haughty that is a that
is that they see everybody is less than themselves you're going to get hurt
because they see you as less than themselves and honestly we're all equal
in God's eyes some of us hold different positions of authority but we're all
valuable and He loves us all the same number 5 they show favoritism this
behavior takes this is a it's clear Tomas Rainer says they have favored a
few while they marginalize the rest now you've probably been in a church where
the pastor shows favoritism I joke with all my staff I said well you
know you're my favorite you know and then I'll put my hand my favorite and
I'll just kind of play they know I'm kidding I don't play favorites in the
ministry you know we have all unique relationships I have a different
relationship with each one in my church I don't have a relationship at all with
some of them because they're brand-new or they've been there a week but they
develop when I don't show favorites you know the one that pastor never makes
them pay for the missions trip or the one that pastor always lets sit at his
table at the banquets you know these are kind of things where it's not just out
of out of out of position or or out of servitude but just out of favoritism and
that is a setup for church because you can work your tail off and never gain in
his favor her favor you can work your tail off and never be accepted into that
inner circle now here's the thing you shouldn't seek that
but when you see other people who don't tithe who don't work or their church you
know and they're just being favored you know it can set you up for the enemy to
pull on that to bring rejection to your doorstep and you could wind up with
Church hurt number six we're gonna do two more that I'm gonna
pray for you number six they have frequent anger outbursts frequent now
notice the word frequent everybody's gonna get angry sometimes look up and
I'm not saying it's right the anger of the anger our anger does not bring about
the righteousness of God but you know everybody has their limits everybody has
bad days I can't stress this enough pastor is not perfect your apostle is
not perfect we're all here are you perfect do you get mad sometimes so you
got to give your leader a break but a toxic leader who is who's gonna bring
Church hurt to your doorstep they have frequent outburst of anger its
frequent the why served under a pot an apostle and and on on Tuesdays they'd
have these staff meetings I was not part of all of these meetings but he would
shoot people out they'd come out just just crying and red-faced and having
anxiety attacks over the next meeting next week because of his anger alper you
could hear him I'd be out in the and the other part of the city you could hear
him screaming and this was every Tuesday there would be leadership meeting behind
the closed doors other ones where he would rail lay into people you know and
I studied anger for a long time because of it to try to figure out what
motivates that you know but if that's not the only you know anger can also be
silent treatment manipulation anger can manifest more
than just an outburst anger can manifest in the cold shoulder anger can manifest
and piling work on you until you until you just crack anger can manifest in
just absolutely calling you out in front of the congregation even if they don't
say your name everybody know who they're talking about so so this is the word
frequent though here is the key everybody's gonna blow it sometimes
frequent anger outburst it's a toxic leader get out of there before you get
hurt if you haven't already number seven they say one thing to some people but
different things to others that's an a software saying they lie they lie if you
have a pastor that is it has a habit of lying it's a toxic past
and you will probably end up getting in the middle of one of these he-said
she-said accusations and get on the wrong end here let me give you a
scenario so the pastor favors this one and this one lies about you well then
the pastor it receives that lie gets in on that lie then you're on the outside
or the pastor lies to you about being available to counsel you but you find
out later that they were actually out to dinner and just watching a movie when
you had an emergency and they lied and you caught them line so it's hurtful
enough that you are having an emergency and pastor wouldn't take five minutes to
pray but then again you find out that they're out having a good time with the
favorite one and they could have just taken five minute that's just piling
hurt upon hurt so I want to pray if you just a minute because if you've seen
these kind of traits in your pastor and I'm not trying to throw pastors under
the bus hear me if you're this kind of pastor you need to repay you we all need
to examine our hearts I am real quick always to examine my heart I don't want
to be that one I don't want to walk in the flesh I don't want to walk in anger
I don't want to play favorites I don't want to do these things we all have bad
days we can also see times where the enemy manipulates our behavior in other
words show someone something that's not true they can read it wrong they can
have a spirit of all Finch they can have a spirit of rejection and they just
think that we're toxic when we're not we're loving them we're praying for them
but it wouldn't matter who was helping them they would still see the wrong
thing the wrong perspective I want to pray if you in a minute
if you are in this kind of church I ask you to pray and ask the Lord if he wants
you to stay in that environment or if he wants you to go to a healthy place to a
safe place we have worked really hard here in South Florida at the awakening
House of Prayer to create a culture of honor and so we don't have these issues
we don't have this backbiting and gossip in our church we don't have church art
going on here as a matter of fact people come from all over the region to come to
church here and one of the first things they'll say out of their mouth is I was
hurt in my last church I didn't want to come back to another but I heard this
was a safe place and and and and I'm proud of that in the sense that my staff
because they interact with the people on a day-to-day far more than I do they
have been very welcoming and loving you need to find a church like that I want
to remind you that we're going really deep in
may a hop dot tevia what invite you to sign up for the church hurt series for
services going deep deep prayers but there's gonna be deliverances there's
gonna be healings you're gonna be able to to to make your comments and do what
you need to do me to be praying powerful prayers there is no distance in the
spirit i want to urge you if this is you you sometimes you can't find a place to
be healed you know there is no distance in the spirit we can help you go to a
hop TV and register today what i also remind you about the making of a prophet
webinar there's tons of stuff for you at school of the spirit TV and if you need
prayer right now we have a special website that you can go to it's called
two four seven prayer room dot-com two four seven prayer room dot-com you can
go there you can leave your prayer requests and our intercessors will pray
for you and of course you can check out our Sunday services at a hot dot online
again go to a hop TV for the church hurt serious I want to pray for your father I
thank you in the name of Jesus I thank you Lord that you heal the brokenhearted
you bind up the wounds God I speak to all those who are dealing with church
hurt in the name of Jesus and I say seek a safe place seek a safe place in the
lord I ask you to order their steps to a safe place where they can detox yes I
said detox God helped them to be able to detox Lord from the toxic pastors from
the toxic Church and then get healed gotta ask you to bring laborers in their
path yes again I asked you to bring those ones in their path who have
empathy sympathy and the healing virtue to release for the Soul I speak
emotional healing and wholeness to you in the name of Jesus I hope you enjoyed
this we'll be back with another preview of the church alert series teaching you
how to get free in Jesus name you can find me online at Jennifer LeClaire.org
bless you